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Sweet Sabbatical

Kate’s wonderful post on the somewhat lost art of getting absorbed in an activity — deliberately not multi-tasking (unitasking? monotasking?) — nudged me closer to a decision I’ve been putting off for a while. Toward the end of her post, Kate said

Also, if you don’t see me around here? It’s generally safe to assume it’s because I’m feeling the need to do more listening than talking. That’s all.

For the last several weeks, I’ve had this terrible feeling that I would have to flounce from the internet altogether to retain my mental health. It’s not that I don’t love this blog, or that I don’t adore having a real audience for my writing,* or that I don’t have anything to say about what we talk about here. It’s just that I’ve been writing and moderating here for almost three years,** and I am tired.

I’m tired of high-speed, high-quality interactivity. I’m tired of multitasking. I’m tired of keeping track of commenters; much as I love you all, there are just so damn many of you these days. I’m tired of reading drive-by trolls whose sole purpose in life is to hurt me and anyone else who happens to be reading. What I’m not tired of, thank god, is reading and writing; I’m tired of talking. Bone tired. Kate’s post hit me between the eyes: I need to make more room in my life for being absorbed, for letting my mind stay with one thing for a while without wandering. If I don’t do something differently, disaster is imminent.

An artist's depiction of my current state of mind

So here’s what I’ve decided: I’m not gonna flounce off the internet. I’m not going to leave the blog and scorch the earth behind me. I’m just going to take a Shapely Sabbatical. You won’t see me around here for a while (except possibly with an occasional comment, link, or especially clever lemur). I have complete faith that my co-bloggers will soldier on just fine without me, and that you all will play nice and follow the ever-more-draconian comments policy we all know and love. And I trust that I can go on sabbatical, work on my dissertation and my poetry and my sanity, and come back to blogging when I’ve got the passion for it again.

Deal?

*It still floors me, in fact — I can write something, and then thousands of people will read it and pass it on! I have dreamed of having that kind of audience all my life, and it’s no less delightful even with my author photo as a cartoon and my nom de plume stolen from a Doty poem.

I am still thoroughly amazed by all that you and your co-bloggers do to keep this a safe internet space, and all the crap you must have to wade through to do so. I can’t even get into a discussion of fat acceptance in the comments on Amazon without blowing my Sanity Watchers points for, like, a year. Enjoy your well deserved quiet time!

P.S. MezzoSherri, I totally started singing JCS in my head after reading the second footnote.

i will miss you SO MUCH, sweet machine. but obviously this is the right thing for you to do. have you ever read anne morrow lindbergh’s “gift from the sea”? a little hippie, maybe, but her metaphor about her creative life being like a basin fed from a spring is so appropriate and beautiful. she talks about how the basin fills slowly, drop by drop, and just the act of living in society drains the bowl as steadily as it fills. solitude, she says, allows the bowl to fill completely. so i hope the basin of your creativity gets a good, long draught.

The other day, I thought, “I spend too much time just mindlessly staring at a computer screen. I’m going to do something different tonight!” So I watched some TV. Texted a few people. Remembered I had to send an email. Pulled out my laptop. Not that I’m using it. It’s just on my lap. I’m actually watching TV and relaxing. Uh-oh, sexist joke on TV. Maybe I’ll just make a post. Just a small post. Haven’t checked my Facebook in a while. God, I should really read some books. Let me see what’s on my Amazon wishlist — yeah, I bet those books will be good. Holy crap, when did the sun go down?

You let me know if you figure out the secret of staring into the middle distance, because I am still working on it.

You certainly made the right decision here – if the message to take some time out is as strong as you describe, you better don’t ignore it. I just hope, for purely selfish reasons, that your love for blogging will return, as I thoroughly enjoyed your posts and will miss you.

I’ve decided to go on a Lemur and silly joke sabbatical until your return. I’m afraid there’s just no point to it anymore….I – I – I – (runs down railway station platform as train with Sweetmachine aboard pulls away) I don’t have it in me to go on. I’ll save all my Lemur jokes for your return. If you wish to see how my angst looks in Lemur terms, simply do an image search on google for “Aye-Aye Lemur.”

Pulled out my laptop. Not that I’m using it. It’s just on my lap. I’m actually watching TV and relaxing.

The other night, Al and I had the non-TV (Roku + projector) on, while I was using my laptop and he was playing with his iPad. I was typing furiously — probably writing a comment here — and he starts playing with an app that makes really, really loud noises.

Me: WTF? Turn that down! I’m watching TV!
Al: You are not watching TV! You’re writing, and you haven’t looked up from your computer in the last 10 minutes!
Me: But I’m still LISTENING to the TV!

And the funny/sad thing is, I really was. It was, predictably, an old episode of Law & Order, so I didn’t need to pay more than a tiny bit of attention. But I WAS paying that tiny bit of attention, so I was really mad about Al just assuming that because I was clearly engrossed in writing something, I wasn’t also engrossed in the show. And I really didn’t want to stop “watching” the show, even though I also had no intention of putting down the computer. Which is fucked-up and ridiculous, but at the time, it made sense.

All of which is to say, Sweet Machine, I approve of this decision, even if not having you around here is a heartbreaker. And we should perhaps spend more time hanging out in person discussing non-internet-related things while you’re away.

Rest breaks from The Internet are SO IMPORTANT, OMG. Lord knows I need them from time to time. I had to learn that if I wasn’t having fun when I was “having fun”, then I needed to stop and step back.

@Harriet Jacobs: ….now I’m embarassed to admit that I do stuff like that when I say “That’s it! No more Internet for Lampdevil! I’m tired of it!” It’s like a mould that’s managed to creep into the cracks of my life….